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The hostess with the moosest (Palin)
The Corner (National Review Online) ^ | 8-30-08 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 08/30/2008 4:42:45 AM PDT by Renfield

Over in the Frumistan province of the NR caliphate, our pal David is not happy about the Palin pick. I am - for several reasons.

First, Governor Palin is not merely, as Jay describes her, "all-American", but hyper-American. What other country in the developed world produces beauty queens who hunt caribou and serve up a terrific moose stew? As an immigrant, I'm not saying I came to the United States purely to meet chicks like that, but it was certainly high on my list of priorities. And for the gun-totin' Miss Wasilla then to go on to become Governor while having five kids makes it an even more uniquely American story. Next to her resume, a guy who's done nothing but serve in the phony-baloney job of "community organizer" and write multiple autobiographies looks like just another creepily self-absorbed lifelong member of the full-time political class that infests every advanced democracy.

Second, it can't be in Senator Obama's interest for the punditocracy to spends its time arguing about whether the Republicans' vice-presidential pick is "even more" inexperienced than the Democrats' presidential one.

Third, real people don't define "experience" as appearing on unwatched Sunday-morning talk shows every week for 35 years and having been around long enough to have got both the War on Terror and the Cold War wrong. (On the first point, at the Gun Owners of New Hampshire dinner in the 2000 campaign, I remember Orrin Hatch telling me sadly that he was stunned to discover how few Granite State voters knew who he was.) Sarah Palin and Barack Obama are more or less the same age, but Governor Palin has run a state and a town and a commercial fishing operation, whereas (to reprise a famous line on the Rev Jackson) Senator Obama ain't run nothin' but his mouth. She's done the stuff he's merely a poseur about. Post-partisan? She took on her own party's corrupt political culture directly while Obama was sucking up to Wright and Ayers and being just another get-along Chicago machine pol (see his campaign's thuggish attempt to throttle Stanley Kurtz and Milt Rosenberg on WGN the other night).

Fourth, Governor Palin has what the British Labour Party politician Denis Healy likes to call a "hinterland" - a life beyond politics. Whenever Senator Obama attempts anything non-political (such as bowling), he comes over like a visiting dignitary to a foreign country getting shanghaied into some impenetrable local folk ritual. Sarah Palin isn't just on the right side of the issues intellectually. She won't need the usual stage-managed "hunting" trip to reassure gun owners: she's lived the Second Amendment all her life. Likewise, on abortion, we're often told it's easy to be against it in principle but what if you were a woman facing a difficult birth or a handicapped child? Been there, done that.

Fifth, she complicates all the laziest Democrat pieties. Energy? Unlike Biden and Obama, she's been to ANWR and, like most Alaskans, supports drilling there.


TOPICS: Cheese, Moose, Sister
KEYWORDS: marksteyn; mccain; moose; palin; sarah; steyn
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To: knews_hound

Thanks, please continue me ON the list!


61 posted on 09/01/2008 8:36:26 PM PDT by matthew fuller (Palin/McCain 08- So let it be written, So let it be done!)
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To: alwaysconservative
He already has dissed her for her “inexperience”,

Obama said he DID have experience as a leader because he led his campaign, which has many employees.

I literally laughed out loud when I heard that. If that's the best they can do, they are sunk.

62 posted on 09/01/2008 9:21:22 PM PDT by Darkwolf377 (Sarah Palin--the man Biden and Obama wish they could be.)
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To: Renfield

Steyn, I’m blowing you a kiss !


63 posted on 09/01/2008 9:25:21 PM PDT by happygrl
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To: reg45
Alaska borders Russia. Governor Palin has actually been involved with Alaskan/Russian issues.

Absolutely.

Plus a huge amount of airborne commerce passes through Anchorage.

Not to mention possible North Korean missle debris.

You can bet she's aware of the threat posed by Northern Hemisphere neighbors.

64 posted on 09/01/2008 9:30:19 PM PDT by happygrl
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To: Edit35
From your link: In two polls conducted last May, Palin’s approval rating ranged from 89 percent to 93 percent, making her perhaps the most popular governor in the country. The ratings came from both Republicans and Democrats who said they liked the fact that Palin has followed through on the promises she made during her campaign.
65 posted on 09/01/2008 9:50:45 PM PDT by happygrl
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To: PeteB570
...she has had to deal with Russian ships in “her” waters.

Nothing big, just fishing ships...

Soviet... ghmmm! Russian fishing ships, as the Caribbean crisis of the 60s show, are quite often carry concealed... rockets, not handguns.

There is another bordering Alaska country, too: Socialist Progressive Dominion of Canada... Steyn has a lot to say about it - that's where he'd immigrated to the USA from.

66 posted on 09/02/2008 1:34:18 AM PDT by Neophyte (Nazis, Communists, Islamists... what the heck is the difference?)
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To: Renfield
Steyn is back from vacation? HIP HIP HOORAY!

And just in time!!!!

67 posted on 09/02/2008 5:42:26 AM PDT by Rummyfan (Iraq: it's not about Iraq anymore, it's about the USA!)
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To: Renfield
Sarah Palin is THE REAL DEAL and I for one am ecstatic over her nomination.
68 posted on 09/02/2008 9:55:11 AM PDT by Rummyfan (Iraq: it's not about Iraq anymore, it's about the USA!)
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To: Lady Jag

:She has a couple of daughters, any chance you know about what year the photo was taken? Thank you!”

Pretty sure it is Piper. Looks like about 2 years ago.


69 posted on 09/02/2008 10:25:01 AM PDT by Forgiven_Sinner (For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him should not die)
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